Keep Your Finger on Rewind
by NerdofSpades
Summary: Nothing makes any sense. The timeline the Eight Precepts (and all of their records) have given him not only doesn't make sense, but it's physically impossible. But Naomasa isn't a detective for no reason. He'll figure it out eventually.


**Yo. So this fic works largely on a fridge horror moment I had months ago, but I only just got around to writing and posting about. For the sake of being bale to have conversations, I'm working on the assumption that Overhaul survived his encounter with Shigaraki after his capture.**

**So, yeah. Anime spoilers ahead and a warning for Overhaul's brand of abuse.**

* * *

Naomasa was having a very bad day. Actually, make that several days. An absolutely horrific week. The only times he'd had it worse were the days following Toshinori's fights with All for One. He pushed aside his scowl and replaced it with a gentle and disarming smile as he stepped into the interrogation room.

"Ah, Chisaki-san, I'm glad you could make it," he said as though the villain had any say in the matter at all. He took his seat across the source of his unending frustration and flipped open the file on the Eight Precepts case. "There appear to be some inconsistencies in your records. I was hoping you could clear some of it up for us."

"Oh?" Overhaul responded. "What kind of inconsistencies?"

"Records concerning Eri-chan. They say that she is six, but they also say she came into your care before Tsumibito-san fell ill, which was just over ten years ago."

Overhaul smiled, smug and beyond satisfied. "I'm afraid I don't see the problem here. My records are accurate."

Naomasa waited for his quirk to respond. To tell him Overhaul was lying. Afterall, they couldn't both be true. Nothing. Overhaul sincerely believed what he said. That his records were accurate.

Naomasa pursed his lips. "If that's all you have for me, Chisaki-san, then I suppose that will be all for today." He stood and quickly left the room, ignoring Overhaul's eyes watching his back.

It didn't make any sense. Overhaul wasn't the only one spouting this nonsense. Every single one of his underlings was saying it as well. They said she was six, but they said her parents had given her to them when her quirk manifested not long before "the Boss" was bedridden. Even the ones that had been there longer than Overhaul were saying the same thing. A two-year-old with a powerful quirk was left in Tsumibito's care, then he became sick, and Overhaul took over.

But that would make her twelve or thirteen at the oldest. _Not six_, which Eri-chan said was her age as well. Which even _the doctors_ agreed was her age.

Was the Eight Precepts under some kind of memory quirk? If so, where did Eri-chan actually come from? How long had they been under it? Who put it there, and why?

No, that still didn't fit. Foraging at least six years of documentation for illegal experimentation would have been difficult, but not impossible. And anyway, if someone wanted to get rid of the kid, they could have just sold her to the Yakuza, altered her memory alone, and called it a day. Much easier, and much less likely to get you killed when the Yakuza figured out what you did.

"Well, you look like you could use a break."

Naomasa glanced up at his old friend, smiling as he relaxed. "Toshinori, it's good to see you. What brings you here?" he quickly put the case file away. All the records said that Eri-chan was the granddaughter of Tsumibito on her mother's side. That was something they could check, at least. Tsumibito had had some respect for government paperwork, making sure his family all had their paperwork sorted out.

"What? I can't just visit a friend?"

Naomasa flagged down Sansa. "Hey, check to see if Tsumibito's daughter had any kids for me?" Sansa nodded.

"And really, you need to take a break Naomasa."

Right, so now he had the number one- _former number one_ hero mother henning him. "Alright, yeah. Let's go find something to eat, and you can tell me what you're actually doing here while we're out."

Toshinori sputter indignantly and Naomasa laughed at him, allowing the case to slip from his mind and focus on spending time with his friend. It would probably be a little harder now that people could recognize him as All Might, but they would make it work.

Turned out, Toshinori had truly just wanted to catch up with his friend. He'd gotten a little stir crazy without his hero work and decided spending time with Naomasa would cheer him up. (He had also asked Naomasa if he knew anyone or anything that would help him get better at actually teaching. Naomasa had replied by looking Toshinori dead in the eye and saying "Have you asked Gran Torino yet? Or what about Aizawa, or Nedzu-san?" Watching Toshinori squirm was always fun.)

Naomasa returned to the precinct much more relaxed and with his head on straighter. His good mood lasted all of two minutes before Sansa found him and delivered the news. Jikan Eri was indeed the granddaughter of Tsumibito and hadn't been seen since just before her father was declared dead by her mother when she was two, almost ten years ago.

Okay, so she existed, but was it even possible for this six-year-old to be the same person? With her quirk, maybe, but given her fear of it and lack of control she would be more likely to rewind herself straight out of existence than just turn herself back a few years. Maybe they could run a DNA test to try and confirm it? No, first he needed to talk to Aizawa and Nedzu-san. They would likely have some ideas about how this could be possible.

He hoped they did, at least. Otherwise, this was going to drive him insane.

* * *

Getting a meeting with Aizawa and Nedzu-san was easy. Explaining what he knew so far was a little harder, but still among the easiest things he'd done this week. Waiting for a reaction was a lot harder.

Aizawa didn't really react, though Naomasa could tell he was thinking hard about it. Even if he mostly just looked dead tired. Nedzu-san was even harder to read. The intelligent creature took another sip of his tea, then spoke. "Aizawa-kun?"

Aizawa grunted and turned his full attention to Nedzu-san.

"You said in your report that Overhaul was capable of using his quirk to merge himself with his subordinates, did you not?"

"I did."

"Then I do not see why could not have used a similar principal to simply turn back Eri-chan's clock periodically."

Naomasa felt dizzy. "His notes did mention using his quirk on her fairly regularly. Both as a punishment and a means of… keeping her alive and her quirk in check when they inevitably pushed her too far in their tests."

Aizawa was shaking. He was furious.

"As much as you do not want to hear this, Aizawa-kun," Nedzu-san continued, "if he had such a tool at his disposal, it would only make sense for him to use it in this case. It is well known that children's quirks are weaker when compared to their strength as adults, even if they do not exercise their quirks. Children are also far more dependent on the adults around them, and more malleable. All of these would combine to make her far easier to control and contain as a child than if she is allowed to grow naturally."

"That only makes homicide look a little more tempting," Aizawa growled back, eyes burning into nothing.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Naomasa said. "I suppose this really doesn't change much. We have her full name and birthday now, but beyond that…" Naomasa shrugged. "Is there anything you'd like us to do?"

Nedzu-san shook his head. "As you said, it doesn't really change anything. It will likely be useful in court to explain why Overhaul's records look strange, but nothing beyond that."

Naomasa nodded. That covered it. Overhaul was a slightly bigger bastard than he'd originally thought (but only slightly, it's hard to get worse than where he started), but there wasn't anything they could do about what had already been done. Not with him already behind bars and functionally quirkless without his hands.


End file.
